Firmware update failed - now what?

This Forum is about the Opentherm gateway (OTGW) from Schelte

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Sjoerd
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Firmware update failed - now what?

Post by Sjoerd »

Hi all,

Hopefully someone can help me out...
This week problem started when the house become cold.
Boiler was pumping water, but did not fire-up. (status 'antipendel mode'
Normal reset of both the boiler and OTGW did not help.

By taking out the OTGW and connecting the boiler directly to the danfos CF2 (on-off). the boiler worked fine agian.
So my conclusion was the problem was in the OTGW

Tried to reflash the latest firmware using OTmonitor over TCP/IP but this update slowed down after ~25%, after that only generating error's
Next tried to connect the OTGW via a USB-TTL connector and update firmware, but get result "could not switch to self programming mode"

The OTGW worked for ~1 year without issue over the network before.

I have a PIC programmer available (was deliverd with the kit) but no idea how to use it.

Can anyone help me by getting the OTGW to live again?

Thanks
Sjoerd
hvxl
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Re: Firmware update failed - now what?

Post by hvxl »

When flashing the firmware, OTmonitor tries to put the OTGW in self-programming mode. That is only possible if you have functioning firmware. If OTmonitor is not able to put the gateway in self-programming mode, it instructs you to "Please manually reset the OpenTherm Gateway". Only if that fails too, after a minute it will admit defeat and report "Could not switch gateway to self-programming mode".

Because flashing the firmware failed the first time, it is not unusual that OTmonitor won't be able to put the gateway in self-programming mode. But you did not indicate if you followed the instruction to manually reset the gateway. That would be the first thing to try: Within a minute after the "please manually reset" message, press the reset button, if connected, or power down and power up the gateway. That should normally start the firmware update.

Only if that doesn't work either, you'll have to fall back to using a PIC programmer.
Schelte
Sjoerd
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Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:20 pm

Re: Firmware update failed - now what?

Post by Sjoerd »

Hallo Schelte,

Thanks for the suggestion.
I did indeed the manual reset teh first time when asked.
I tried now also to restart by unplugging from mains while when OT monitor is asking for it, but also without result.

In the meantime I tried to update flash using a ts8900-k150, but did not succeed so far.
I had trouble with the Profilic driver on W10 and not sure what program to use and how to position the PIC on the K150.

Can you or some one else, give some tips?
Or can I get a new PIC with a good firmware somewhere?

Thanks in advance
Sjoerd

ps sory fore the late resopnse, i expected a mail when the tread was updated, but apperently not. I now see notify tick box is by default off.
hvxl
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Re: Firmware update failed - now what?

Post by hvxl »

That is really strange. As you can imagine, during firmware development I sometimes introduced a bug that made the device completely unresponsive. But I never had to reflash the PIC. A power cycle always sufficed to download new firmware. (I did have to reflash one or two times when I messed up the bootloader, but that area shouldn't have been touched by your actions.)

I have no experience with the type of PIC programmer you have (or your OS, for that matter), so I can't help there.
Schelte
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